Chapter 95
Chapter 95
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 95
Chapter Title: The Bell Tolls Mightily (3)
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Two shadows prowled the alley at dawn.
It was Allen and Iriel.
“Why isn’t he back yet?”
Allen kept gnawing at his already worn-down nails. Genesis’s return was taking longer than expected. Dawn was about to break, yet Genesis still hadn’t returned.
Breaking into the Governor-General’s office alone.
The later it got, the more his stamina would deplete.
His delayed return was by no means a positive sign.
Iriel, who had been pacing anxiously beside him, looked at Allen with worried eyes.
“Nothing bad happened, right?”
It was already the fifth time she’d asked the same question.
“Don’t worry. You know how strong Genesis is. Nothing happened.”
Allen gave the same answer for the fifth time.
He was comforting Iriel while comforting himself at the same time.
‘Yeah, he’ll be fine…….’
As Allen tried to quell his anxiety, he suddenly smacked his own head.
It was the fifth time for that, too.
But having grown used to Genesis’s knuckle-raps, it didn’t hurt at all.
‘If only I hadn’t dozed off during prayer time!’
Had he known he’d feel this anxious, he would’ve prayed to some nonexistent god.
“Should I go help?”
At Iriel’s words, Allen frantically shook his head.
And so the two of them stared intently down the alley, waiting for their master like puppies left at home, their hearts full of desperate longing.
The darkness around them was gradually lifting.
Yet Genesis remained utterly out of touch.
“Should we check the Governor-General’s office?”
It was the moment their eyes met, unable to bear the anxiety any longer.
Dong-!
A massive, resonant bell toll suddenly rang out from nowhere.
Their ears perked up, and their eyes widened round.
The bell was supposed to ring only on Friday afternoons at 1 p.m.
Yet here it was, tolling in the early dawn.
They didn’t know what it meant, but it was surely connected to Genesis.
Dong-!
They hurriedly climbed onto the rooftops.
An ominous foreboding gripped them.
There was no reason for Genesis to ring the bell.
Pale-faced, they reached the roof and gazed at the distant spire, faintly visible.
“?!”
They flinched and rubbed their eyes, then looked at each other simultaneously.
“……That’s it, right? I’m not seeing things, am I?”
Iriel was so shocked she couldn’t even properly describe what she’d seen. But Allen understood perfectly and nodded.
The dawn brightened.
As the darkness receded, the spire’s peak came into sharp relief, and there fluttered the flag of Francia.
The branch was on the city outskirts, so it wasn’t perfectly clear, but it was unmistakably the Francia flag—navy blue with the Leonir Lancer emblazoned on it.
The moment Allen saw it, his heart pounded as if it might burst.
Elation surged through his body and shot up to the heavens.
‘Yes. This is it.’
This was why he’d stayed by Genesis’s side—to feel this overwhelming thrill.
Ever since meeting Genesis, Allen had felt like he’d stepped into a legendary tale that would one day make him part of history.
Because in such stories, unbelievable, dreamlike events unfolded just like this.
Those stories always kicked off abruptly at some turning point.
For him, it had been his encounter with Genesis.
From that moment, this tale—destined to live on in song—had begun.
Sure, he was just handling menial tasks by Genesis’s side, but even those trivial chores became grand in his presence.
To think that doing nothing more than cooking and washing dishes could make him the closest confidant of a Sword Master hailed as the strongest in history!
How exhilarating was that?
While Allen was lost in his own world, Iriel was frantically waving at those who’d come out at the sound of the bell.
“Everyone, come up here! Hurry!”
Those who climbed onto the roofs at her urging froze in place and let out successive gasps of awe.
Sleepless, bloodshot eyes stared in disbelief at the dreamlike reality before them.
“…….”
Yuria clutched the front of her clothes with both hands, speechless.
If she didn’t, her heart felt like it would explode right then.
She had seen that sight once before, as a very young child: the Francia flag fluttering over Magnet’s skies.
The memory was hazy, but it had been the happiest moment of her life, so Yuria remembered it vividly.
Her hell had begun the instant that flag burned.
In a single moment, she’d lost her parents and become an orphan, wandering the back alleys.
The merciless scorn and abuse poured on her as a “Francian.”
They were all new to her young self—overwhelming violence she couldn’t handle.
In those grim alleys, she’d survived desperately until Harab noticed her, and she joined the independence army.
The scorn and abuse still followed her, though not as badly, and she’d grown accustomed to it.
Now, she worked in Harab’s mornings, living days that were tough but fulfilling.
Yet every time she had to salute the empire’s flag, hot rage would surge in her chest.
The humiliations she had to endure just for being Francian.
The arrogance of those who’d killed her parents.
It tore at the wounds in her heart.
But now, the Francia flag had risen again in that festering sore.
What was it like?
It felt like the deep-seated rage locked in her chest was being thoroughly washed away.
A refreshing clarity, as if the rotten wound had been cleanly excised.
Dong-!
The clear bell tone vibrated through her entire body.
Had this sound always been so beautiful?
Each toll deepened the thrilling pulse.
At the same time, a warm, bright energy welled up in her heart.
The name of this feeling was, without a doubt—
Yes. Hope.
Not the hope of expecting or wishing for something.
But the hope that things could get better than now.
That the day of independence would surely come.
Hope blooming from a clear conviction and faith in the future.
It shook her heart more powerfully than any emotion she’d felt in her life.
That感動 gathered like dewdrops and streamed down from her eyes.
She’d cried plenty before, but these were the first tears carrying such overwhelming emotion.
It felt like the heavy weight that had burdened her chest was refreshingly swept away with the moisture.
A thick hand came down on her crown.
She turned to see its owner.
“Grandfather…….”
It was Harab.
Seeing the moisture in Harab’s eyes as he gazed into the distance, Yuria realized she wasn’t alone—everyone felt the same.
A glance around confirmed it.
Strangely, everyone wore the same expression.
And it wasn’t just them.
Widening her gaze, she saw people climbing onto rooftops.
“Everyone, get up on the roofs!”
Those who’d climbed first shouted, urging others up.
“What in the world is going on?”
“You’ll see when you come up!”
People with flushed faces spread the word everywhere.
Dong-!
Countless voices spread amid the hugely tolling bell.
Unprompted, people shared the news and moved to see for themselves.
Those who couldn’t see the spire from their rooftops spilled into the streets or headed to taller buildings.
Broad avenues and building roofs filled with crowds.
“Ah-.”
And as if by agreement, they all let out the same gasp.
The meaning contained in that square scrap of cloth was indescribable.
It held life itself.
A lifetime of joy, sorrow, love, and hate.
All of it was there.
Foolishly, it was only after losing their country that they realized how towering that bulwark had been.
That an entire life was contained within it.
People gazed at the flag, feeling their hearts churn.
Countless gazes converged on one point.
Each looked with their own eyes.
Their individual lives and pains were captured in those gazes.
As many stories as there were people.
Their tales differed, but all shared the same pain.
They had lost their country.
The Francia flag embraced every one of those gazes wholly.
Then, at some point.
The myriad individual stories, as numerous as the heads present, began to grow into one heart within that single flag.
Love for country.
Those quietly watching the flag flap in the wind began, unbidden, to place hands over their left chests.
One, two.
And then all.
Every Francian living in the capital, Magnet, saluted the flag.
Dawn’s first light shone upon their heads.
The Francia flag fluttering in the sky glowed in even more vivid colors.
Dong-!
The bell toll struck their hearts fiercely.
The bell rang for a mere five minutes.
Utterly brief compared to a lifetime.
But in that fleeting span, people soothed a decade of pain and etched an indelible memory vividly into their minds.
And simultaneously.
Something they’d forgotten amid the hardship.
Something swept away by grueling life.
An indescribable emotion ignited into a massive blaze.
It was surely.
A burning desire for independence.
Today,
they had glimpsed independence, if only for a moment.
* * *
My mother always said,
To lead the people, you must love the people.
-Only then will they love us, love the country.
Mother always said that.
Now, I was experiencing her words in reverse.
Looking at those filling the avenues and rooftops.
Seeing those who still yearned for their country.
I recalled the affection I’d once held for them.
The people who had been my dream long ago.
From the bell tower, I gazed at the tiny dots of citizens and felt an emotion I’d completely forgotten blooming in my chest.
Their pain from the past years transmitted to me as if it were my own, vivid and poignant.
It tugged at me sorrowfully.
I knew what kind of pains they were.
Even though I’d returned to the Valencia continent not long ago, I had seen that darkness and felt it.
They had endured it for a full ten years.
The remaining hope must have turned to ashes by now.
That was why I had raised the Francia flag here once more.
To those who had been my dream.
To these people who had been my Francia.
I was telling them.
I will restore the country you lost.